Delivering subject content through nine life themes
Earlier this month Play England published research showing that at least 21 adventure playgrounds have been lost across England – roughly 15% of the total – in the last five years. Many more have suffered severe cuts in funding. Adventure play and adventure playgrounds… Continue Reading “Fund rather than cut adventure play”
If you have eaten out in the last few days, you may have noticed a change to the menu, specifically the addition of information about calories. It is one of two new public health interventions announced in the last week. The second is (draft)… Continue Reading “Tackling the obesity crisis”
Shocking new figures released by the UK Office for National Statistics are a reminder that there is a massive gap in healthy life expectancy and in overall life expectancy between the wealthiest and the poorest areas of England. For example, someone born in a… Continue Reading “Helping children lead healthy lives”
The latest Active Lives survey from Sport England, published this week, suggests that there has been a partial recovery in adult activity levels following a large drop caused by the Covid pandemic. However, more than 12 million adults are currently classed as inactive. The… Continue Reading “Ensuring children lead active lives”
The radical writer and activist George Monbiot wrote recently about an ‘epistemic crisis’ – ‘epistemic’ means ‘relating to knowledge’. He quoted the journalist Gabriel Gatehouse lamenting the loss of a “common frame of reference” and a “shared sense of reality”. Monbiot’s argument was that… Continue Reading “Rethinking how we tackle obesity”
Recently published figures on life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and adult activity levels reveal stark and shocking inequalities across the nation. We have been blogging recently about the need to rethink how we tackle obesity. And however unwelcome the thought is at a time… Continue Reading “Opportunities to swim”
More evidence has been published suggesting that children are not as physically active as they need to be and that their activity levels are actually falling over time. Covid has been a factor, of course: the new University of Bristol study indicates that children… Continue Reading “We need to keep children active”
The UK government has been heavily criticised this week for its decision to delay implementing key elements of its obesity strategy aimed at discouraging people from buying unhealthy food and drinks. The government says that the delay is to allow time to assess the… Continue Reading “Delays on healthy eating”
Life-Based Learning has consistently championed the importance of adventurous play for children. It has many benefits, not the least of which is helping children learn to assess and manage risk. Now an academic study has demonstrated the benefits of ‘risky play’ for children’s mental… Continue Reading “Adventurous play is good for children’s mental health”
New research suggests that around 7 in 10 people in the UK – 42 million people – could be overweight by 2040. The shocking figures, from Cancer Research UK, were published in May, just after the decision by the UK government to delay implementation… Continue Reading “A health challenge we cannot afford to ignore”